Almost every time I walk through Crocheron Park, I encounter an unleashed dog ‒ German Shepherd, Doberman or some other four-legged turd factory ‒ sprinting straight at me for a sniff and a growl.

And this is during afternoon hours when it's illegal for dogs to be unleashed in a city park.

There's no relief.

City cops in the terror age don't have time for shaggy dog stories. And since there are only 53 park enforcement officers for 1,700 city parks, you're um, spit out of luck.

For 20 years, starting with the weird Henry Stern, right up to this Benepe, the Parks Department has allowed dogs to run loose through our city parks from 9pm to 9am, as if they owned the night.

But this policy was always in violation of Department of Health ordinance 161.05 requiring dogs to be on a leash at all times. So last year, the Juniper Park Civic Association took the Parks Department to court, demanding that they comply with the law.

Instead, in December of last year, Queens Supreme Court Justice Kelly ruled that the Parks Department had the right to let dogs run free.

To add to the madness, and in violation of their mission statement of protecting the public from harm and disease, the Department of Health changed their rule to match the Parks Department's crazy unofficial rule.

"It's lunacy," says Robert Holden, president of the Juniper Park Civic Association. "How can you say it's okay for dogs to run free at 8:59am but illegal a minute later at 9a.m.? We have kids, joggers, and elderly people in the parks in the early morning.

"And there are dangerous pit bulls, rottweilers, German shepherds running loose! One morning, I saw a young boy, about 3, backed against a fence by a big growling dog, which to him must have looked like a dinosaur!

"Three years ago, a woman named Tatiana Grant was attacked by a large unleashed dog while rollerblading through Juniper Park. Last June 8, a Rottweiler ripped apart the arm of Matthew Connolly, who walked his little dog on a leash in Principe Park."

Benepe told the Daily News last December, "For the last two decades, this policy has made parks and neighborhoods safer, reduced bites and allowed responsible owners to exercise and socialize their dogs. Tired dogs are good dogs."

And idiotic commissioners are bad commissioners.

Look, I have nothing against dogs. It's the people who are the selfish pigs. What the judge and the parks commissioner are also missing, and what the health department dangerously ignores, is that many of the owners who let their dogs run free do not clean up after them.

It's nighttime in the woods, guys!

There's no one around to enforce the pooper scooper law. Even responsible dog owners couldn't possibly locate a poochpile in the night when Fido runs 300 yards into the meadow. It'd be like finding a golf ball in a blizzard.

But there is the next day, when my kid runs for a long one.

Thousands of dogs are running loose and defecating all over the lawns, meadows and green spaces of our city where we picnic and our children play.

Each pile of feces contains billions of coliform bacteria that can cause E. coli, salmonella and giardia in humans.

If a child catches a feces-smeared ball and inadvertently puts his dirty hands to his mouth, he can swallow roundworm larvae which hatch in the intestines, migrate through the body tissue and cause liver enlargement and high fever.

The Juniper Berry magazine, first published in 1938 is an all-volunteer effort containing articles on crime prevention, neighborhood issues, meeting reports and notices, neighborhood history and photographs, guest articles, editorials and more.

Press Releases

(June 7, 2016) Assemblywoman Margaret Markey is pushing a bill in the State Assembly that would extend the statute of limitations for civil claims brought by sexual abuse victims. (Interestingly, it does not attempt to toughen criminal penalties for sexual abuse.) The bill has been promoted non-stop by media such as the Daily News, which has vilified anyone who has questions about it or opposes it outright. However, what is not being discussed by the media is that Markey's bill has fine print with major implications: it targets religious and private institutions while granting exemptions to public entities, such as the Department of Education, which runs the majority of schools in our city.

At a time when the people's trust in government is at an all-time low, our City Council Members have introduced legislation which increases the number of dangerous illegal immigrants in our neighborhoods. Under the recently passed law, Introduction 656, the New York City Department of Corrections will no longer cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents concerning approximately half of the illegal immigrants who get arrested in the City.